(via fckincurrent)
Kate Doyle swearing-in during the trial against former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori.
By ARTURO CONDE
Surrounded by tall black filing cabinets and a large color map of Guatemala, Kate Doyle’s desk in her New York office looks more like the workspace of an academic or a clerk than an investigator. Even her job title, Senior Analyst of U.S. policy in Latin America, suggests that she would feel more at home beneath the high ceilings of the New York Public Library on 42nd Street in Manhattan. But in spite of Doyle’s calm, scholarly demeanor, she possesses the tenacity and fearlessness of a boxer who uses evidence found in government files to convict powerful, and sometimes dangerous, military and political leaders of human rights violations.
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“untitled
the earth is so green today!
still asleep under a blanket of dew.
awaking ever so radiant and new
her lushness revealed as dawn to light gives way.
she seems to blush when to her a compliment I pay-
a rosebud here, a daisy there.
never has she seemed more fair.
under the invigorating touch of spring’s first shower,
her trees have unleashed their leaves
and uninhibited are her flowers-
who after the torturous months of winter
so yearned for this intimate hour.
let your shy beauty be emboldened by these tender kisses.”
— c. s. becerril
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“The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime.” — Max Stirner (via primal-libertarian)
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(Nuns) were the first feminists, earning Ph.D.’s or working as surgeons long before it was fashionable for women to hold jobs. As managers of hospitals, schools and complex bureaucracies, they were the first female C.E.O.’s.
They are also among the bravest, toughest and most admirable people in the world. In my travels, I’ve seen heroic nuns defy warlords, pimps and bandits. Even as bishops have disgraced the church by covering up the rape of children, nuns have redeemed it with their humble work on behalf of the neediest.
So, Pope Benedict, all I can say is: You are crazy to mess with nuns.
The Vatican issued a stinging reprimand of American nuns this month and ordered a bishop to oversee a makeover of the organization that represents 80 percent of them. In effect, the Vatican accused the nuns of worrying too much about the poor and not enough about abortion and gay marriage.
What Bible did that come from? Jesus in the Gospels repeatedly talks about poverty and social justice, yet never explicitly mentions either abortion or homosexuality. If you look at who has more closely emulated Jesus’s life, Pope Benedict or your average nun, it’s the nun hands down.
Since the papal crackdown on nuns, they have received an outpouring of support. “Nuns were approached by Catholics at Sunday liturgies across the country with a simple question: ‘What can we do to help?’ ” The National Catholic Reporter recounted. It cited one parish where a declaration of support for nuns from the pulpit drew loud applause, and another that was filled with shouts like, “You go, girl!”
At least four petition drives are under way to support the nuns. One on Change.org has gathered 15,000 signatures. The headline for this column comes from an essay by Mary E. Hunt, a Catholic theologian who is developing a proposal for Catholics to redirect some contributions from local parishes to nuns.
“How dare they go after 57,000 dedicated women whose median age is well over 70 and who work tirelessly for a more just world?” Hunt wrote. “How dare the very men who preside over a church in utter disgrace due to sexual misconduct and cover-ups by bishops try to distract from their own problems by creating new ones for women religious?”
Sister Joan Chittister, a prominent Benedictine nun, said she had worried at first that nuns spend so much time with the poor that they would have no allies. She added that the flood of support had left her breathless.
“It’s stunningly wonderful,” she said. “You see generations of laypeople who know where the sisters are — in the streets, in the soup kitchens, anywhere where there’s pain. They’re with the dying, with the sick, and people know it.”
” — New York Times columnist NICK KRISTOF, “We Are All Nuns” (via inothernews)(via oxalaoxala)
“Think of all the women you know who will not allow themselves to be seen without makeup. I often wonder how they feel about themselves at night when they are climbing into bed with intimate partners. Are they overwhelmed with secret shame that someone sees them as they really are? Or do they sleep with rage that who they really are can be celebrated or cared for only in secret?” — Bell Hooks, Communion: The Female Search for Love (via ceedling)
THIS.
(via solipsists)
“i will wade out
till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
i will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
Alive
with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
in the sleeping curves of my body”
— e. e. cummings
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“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.” — Martin Luther King, Jr. (via think-progress)
(via newwavefeminism)
“In 1985, the top five percent of the households, wealthiest five percent, had net worth of $8 trillion, which is a lot. Today, after serial bubble after serial bubble, the top five percent have net worth of $40 trillion…The top five percent have gained more wealth than the whole human race had created prior to 1980.” —
Reagan budget director David Stockman
This, my friends, is what you call class warfare.
(via pieceinthepuzzlehumanity)
(via liberalsarecool)
“I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.” — Albert Einstein (via occupyallstreets)
(via occupyallstreets)
